The court may reopen the Shurnukh case
The case of the violence in Shurnukh village of Syunik region in August 2018 has not yet been resolved.
In February 2021, the case was dismissed for the second time based on the expiration of the statute of limitations. There is a regulation in the domestic legislation of Armenia, according to which, if a certain period has passed since the crime, the given crime is already considered non-harmful to the public, and the investigative body no longer finds it appropriate to punish the person for the committed crime. The measurable period according to the article providing for liability for battery is two years, i.e., if two years pass after beating a person, the person who beat them is no longer held accountable. Since Shurnukh’s case was initiated under the article of battery, two years after the incident, in August 2020, the statute of limitations for the case expired. On that basis, the case was dismissed for the second time. It was canceled for the first time in 2018, applying amnesty to criminals. The problem is that, in this case, the motive for the battery was intolerance towards the sexual orientation and gender identity of the victims; i.e., the crime should have been classified as a hate crime. Therefore, committing the crime based on hatred would be considered an aggravating circumstance of battery, as a result of which the statute of limitations would be longer, for example, five years or more. However, according to the domestic legislation (2003 Criminal Code), there is no such regulation.
It is necessary to consider that after the case was dismissed and reopened for the first time, the courts indicated that the circumstance of discrimination based on the sexual orientation of the victims should be taken into account and made the subject of investigation. Still, the investigative body did it formally, simply asking the perpetrators whether they committed the crime out of discrimination against the sexual orientation of the victims, and the perpetrators naturally denied this because they may not have understood what discrimination or sexual orientation is. Meanwhile, the investigative body did not clarify the concepts mentioned until then. It turns out that the investigative body asked the question formally but did not achieve anything in terms of content as the village residents denied committing the crime based on discrimination against sexual orientation; however, they did it without understanding the meaning of the mentioned concepts.
The decision of the investigative body to dismiss the case for the second time was appealed to the prosecutor by the representative of the victims, Pink’s lawyer Luiza Vardanyan, after which the prosecutor rejected the submitted complaint. Afterward, the representative of the victims brought a complaint to the court regarding the case. As a result, on August 18, 2022, the General Jurisdiction Court of First Instance of Syunik Region decided to satisfy the complaint of the victim’s representative.
In the reasoning section of the decision of the General Jurisdiction Court of First Instance of Syunik Region, it is said: “The Court finds that the decision of the investigative body to not prosecute and terminate the proceedings in the criminal case is based on hasty conclusions, as all reasonable steps to reach the body implementing the proceedings were not taken.” The court also noted that the investigative body in the case did not interrogate certain people who had information about the circumstances of essential importance for the case and could testify about them during the interrogation.
“Thus, the Court considers that the complaint submitted by the representative of the victims in the criminal case, Luiza Vardanyan, is subject to satisfaction, because the decision of the investigative body not to prosecute and terminate the proceedings in the criminal case led to the violation of the victims’ rights of having a full, comprehensive and objective investigation in their case, as well as violation of the right to fair investigation”, mentioned the court in the reasoning section of the decision.
The RA Prosecutor’s Office appealed the decision of the Court of First Instance to the RA Criminal Court of Appeal․ However, on October 24, 2022, the Criminal Court of Appeal rejected the appeal of the Prosecutor’s Office and upheld the decision of the Court of First Instance, which means that if the Prosecutor’s Office does not appeal the decision of the Criminal Court of Appeal to the Court of Cassation, or if the Court of Cassation refuses to accept the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office, then the investigation of the case must be restarted. It is noteworthy that the Prosecutor’s Office constantly brings complaints and tries to delay the investigation of the case. As a result, the victims or witnesses in the case forget the events or start mixing them up because four and a half years have already passed since the incident or because it was necessary to get such evidence sooner. As a result, victims or witnesses in the case can no longer give precise answers to many questions.
It follows that the goal of the body conducting the proceedings is to cover up the crime in every way and not to get the criminals to be punished. Moreover, the body conducting the proceedings justifies the actions carried out by the criminals, as it considers mutual disputes to be the motive for the crime.
